MAKE - The Law Mind Legal Dictionary

MAKEAuthored

The Law Mind • 1081 words

Definition

In law, "make" is a term of broad operative force used to describe the act of bringing a legal instrument, obligation, or formal act into existence through the requisite legal steps. Its precise meaning shifts with context:

To execute a legal instrument. To prepare, sign, seal, and deliver a document in legally sufficient form — as in "to make a deed," "to make a note," or "to make a conveyance." In this sense, "make" encompasses the complete chain of acts necessary to give the instrument legal effect.

To perform a formal legal act. To carry out an act with the procedural formalities required by law — as in "to make oath," "to make answer," or "to make a return." Here, "make" signals compliance with a prescribed legal form, not merely the underlying act itself.

To enter into an agreement or obligation. To agree to or execute a contract or other binding commitment — as in "to make a contract." The term implies the mutual assent and completion necessary for enforceability.

To fail to perform (in specific phrases). Counterintuitively, "to make default" means to fail to appear or fulfill a legal duty. The word "make" here is vestigial, absorbed into a fixed legal phrase where its natural meaning reverses.

To produce or create. In a broader sense, to bring something into legal existence — as in "to make an issue," "to make a presentment," or "to make a will."

Common Language

Modern common usage (Wiktionary): To create, build, produce, or originate; to bring about by some action; to prepare (as food); to behave or act in a certain way.

Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): Primarily "a companion; a mate; often, a husband or a wife" — a now-obsolete sense entirely unrelated to legal usage.

The gap between common and legal usage is not one of conflict but of precision. In ordinary English, "make" is among the most general verbs in the language. In legal instruments and pleadings, it functions as a term of art when paired with a legal noun — "make oath," "make default," "make delivery" — each pairing importing a specific, defined set of acts. A researcher who reads "make" in an older document as merely meaning "do" or "create" may miss the formality and completeness those pairings require.

Common Confusion

"Make" and "execute" are often used interchangeably in legal instruments, but they are not always synonymous. "Execute" more precisely refers to the signing and formal completion of a document. "Make" may encompass execution but also includes the preparatory steps (drafting, sealing) and the delivery that follows. In some historical authorities, a document is "made" when all steps — preparation, signing, sealing, and delivery — are complete; it is merely "executed" when signed. Researchers working with older deeds and instruments should attend to which word appears in the relevant formality rule.

Why It Matters in Research

The word "make" appears constantly in historical legal documents, statutes, and pleading forms, but its meaning is almost entirely dependent on what follows it. Researchers should treat "make" as a flag word that activates the legal definition of the noun it governs, not as a standalone term.

Several traps appear in historical sources. First, "make default" is the most counterintuitive pairing: it means failure, not action, yet it is built from a word normally denoting performance. Older pleading manuals and court records use this phrase extensively. Second, in instruments involving negotiable paper — bills of exchange, promissory notes — "maker" (the person who makes a note) carries specific liability consequences distinct from endorsers or acceptors. Research into commercial law disputes requires distinguishing who "made" an instrument from who endorsed or guaranteed it. Third, in ecclesiastical and early common law contexts, "to make his law" (facere legem) referred to compurgation — clearing oneself by oath with oath-helpers — a procedure long abolished but encountered in medieval and early modern legal records.

Jurisdictional variation matters less for "make" itself than for the specific acts it describes. Whether "making" a will, deed, or contract satisfies local formality requirements depends entirely on the jurisdiction's rules for those instruments, not on the word "make."

Historical Dictionary Support

The four shelf sources converge on the core meaning — "make" as a verb of legal performance — but each emphasizes different registers.

Black's Law Dictionary organizes the term around escalating degrees of formality: from causing something to exist, to performing with legal due process, to executing with full formalities, and finally to signing, executing, and delivering. This graduated framing is the most analytically useful for understanding how courts have read "make" in instrument drafting.

Anderson's Dictionary of Law provides the most granular list of specific legal collocations, including the counterintuitive "to make default" (to fail) alongside productive acts like "to make a bill" or "to make a contract." Anderson's is the most useful source for researchers encountering unfamiliar "make + noun" pairings in historical pleadings.

Bouvier's Law Dictionary grounds the term in older procedural law, specifically citing "to make his law" as a reference to compurgation under the old writ system. Bouvier's entry, though brief, is the only shelf source to preserve this archaic usage, making it essential for anyone working in pre-nineteenth-century common law records.

Black's 2nd Edition's entry is fragmentary in the extracted text, but its surrounding material on "major" maxims suggests the entry was positioned within a broader discussion of legal acts and their consequences. The substance aligns with Black's 1st Edition.

None of the historical dictionaries address "make" in the context of negotiable instruments — the liability of a "maker" of a promissory note — as fully as specialized commercial law treatises do. Researchers working in that area should move beyond the general dictionaries to instrument-specific sources.

Jurisdictional Note

The word "make" in statutes and instruments is interpreted according to the law of the jurisdiction governing the instrument or act. In civil law jurisdictions influenced by Louisiana or Quebec law, the formalities imported by "make" in notarial instruments may differ substantially from common law equivalents. Researchers working across civil and common law traditions should verify what act-completing formalities local law requires before treating "make" as importing a fixed set of steps.

MAKEmain

Black's Law Dictionary • 1891

1. To cause to exist; to form, fashion, or produce; to do, perform, or exe- cute; as to make an issue, to make oath, to make a presentment. 2. To do in form of law; to perform with due formalities; to execute in legal form; as to make answer, to make a return. 3. To execute as one's act or obligation; to prepare and sign; to sign, execute, and de- liver; as to make a conveyance, to make a note. 4. To conclude, determine upon, agree to, or execute; as to make a contract. 5. To cause to happen by one's neglect or omission; as to make default. 6. To make acquisition of; to procure; to collect; as to make the money on an execu- Majore pœna affectus quam legibustion. statuta est, non est infamis. One affected with a greater punishment than is provided by law is not infamous. 4 Inst. 66.

MAKEmain

Black's Law Dictionary (2nd Ed.) • 1910

general, and next below a lieutenant general, and who usually commands a division or an army corps. ‘ Major hsreditas venit unicuigque nostrum a jure et legibus quam a parentibus. 2 Inst. 56. A _ greater inheritance comes to every one of us from right and the laws than from parents. Major numerus in se continet mimorem. Bract. fol. 16. The greater number contains in itself the less. I. To cause to exist; to form, fashion, or produce; to do, perform, or exe- cute: as to make an issue, to make oath, to make a presentment. 2. To do in form of law; to perform with due formalities; to execute in legal form; as to make answer, to make a refurn. 3. To execute as one’s act or obligation ; to prepare and sign; to sign, execute, and deliver; as to make a conveyance, to make a note. 4. To conclude, determine upon, agree to, or execute; as to make a contract. 5. To cause to happen by one’s neglect or omission; as to make default. 6. To make acquisition of; to procure; to collect; as to make the money on an exeeution. 7. To have authority or influence; to support or sustain; as in the phrase, “This precedent makes for the plaintiff.” —Make an assignment. To transfer one’s property to an assignee for the benefit of one’s creditors.—Make an award. To form and ublish a judgment on the facts. Hoff v. Taylor, D N. J. Law, 833.—Make a contract. To agree upon, and conclude or adopt, a contract, In case of a written contract, to reduce it to writing, execute it in due form, and deliver it as binding.—Make default. To fail or be wanting in some legal duty; particularly, to omit the entering of an appearance when duly summoned in an action at law or other judicial proceeding, to neglect to obey the command of a subpenn, etc.—Make one’s faith. A Scotch phrase, equivalent to the old English ’ phrase, “to make one’s law.”.

MAKEmain

Anderson's Dictionary of Law • 1890

1. To prepare, subscribe, verify and file: as, to make answer. 2. To transfer for the benefit of a creditor or creditors: as, to make an assignment. 3. To sign, seal, and deliver; to execute: as, to make a bill, deed, note. 4. To agree to, or to execute: as, to make a contract. 5. To fail to do a thing required in the conduct of legal proceedings: as, to make default. 6. To produce, create: as, to make an issue. 7. To collect or procure under an exeсиMajor vis. The stronger agency. See ❘tion: as, to make the money; money made. VIS, Major.

MAKEn.

Websters Unabridged Dictionary (1913) • 1913

A companion; a mate; often, a husband or a wife. [Obs.] For in this world no woman is Worthy to be my make. Chaucer.

MAKEv.

Websters Unabridged Dictionary (1913) • 1913

To cause to exist; to bring into being; to form; to produce; to frame; to fashion; to create. Hence, in various specific uses or applications: To form of materials; to cause to exist in a certain form; to construct; to fabricate. He . . . fashioned it with a graving tool, after he had made it a molten calf. Ex. xxxii. 4. To produce, as something artificial, unnatural, or false; -- often with up; as, to make up a story. And Art, with her contending, doth aspire To excel the natural with made delights. Spenser. To bring about; to bring forward; to be the cause or agent of; to effect, do, perform, or execute; -- often used with a noun to form a phrase equivalent to the simple verb that corresponds to such noun; as, to make complaint, for to complain; to make record of, for to record; to make abode, for to abide, etc. Call for Samson, that he may make us sport. Judg. xvi. 25. Wealth maketh many friends. Prov. xix. 4. I will neither plead my age nor sickness in excuse of the faults which I have made. Dryden. To execute with the requisite formalities; as, to make a bill, note, will, deed, etc. To gain, as the result of one's efforts; to get, as profit; to make acquisition of; to have accrue or happen to one; as, to make a large profit; to make an error; to make a loss; to make money. He accuseth Neptune unjustly who makes shipwreck a second time. Bacon. To find, as the result of calculation or computation; to ascertain by enumeration; to find the number or amount of, by reckoning, weighing, measurement, and the like; as, he made the distance of; to travel over; as, the ship makes ten knots an hour; he made the distance in one day. To put a desired or desirable condition; to cause to thrive. Who makes or ruins with a smile or frown. Dryden. To cause to be or become; to put into a given state verb, or adjective; to constitute; as, to make known; to make public; to make fast. Who made thee a prince and a judge over us Ex. ii. 14. See, I have made thee a god to Pharaoh. Ex. vii. 1. To cause to appear to be; to constitute subjectively; to esteem, suppose, or represent. He is not that goose and ass that Valla would make him. Baker. To require; to constrain; to compel; to force; to cause; to occasion; -- followed by a noun or pronoun and infinitive. To become; to be, or to be capable of being, changed or fashioned into; to do the part or office of; to furnish the material for; as, he will make a good musician; sweet cider makes sour vinegar; wool makes warm clothing. And old cloak makes a new jerkin. Shak. To compose, as parts, ingredients, or materials; to constitute; to form; to amount to. The heaven, the air, the earth, and boundless sea, Make but one temple for the Deity. Waller. To be engaged or concerned in. [Obs.] Gomez, what makest thou here, with a whole brotherhood of city bailiffs Dryden. To reach; to attain; to arrive at or in sight of. "And make the Libyan shores." Dryden. They that sail in the middle can make no land of either side. Sir T. Browne. To make a bed, to prepare a bed for being slept on, or to put it in order.  -- To make a card (Card Playing), to take a trick with it.  -- To make account. See under Account, n.  -- To make account of, to esteem; to regard.  -- To make away. (a) To put out of the way; to kill; to destroy. [Obs.] If a child were crooked or deformed in body or mind, they made him away. Burton. To alienate; to transfer; to make over. [Obs.] Waller.  -- To make believe, to pretend; to feign; to simulate.  -- To make bold, to take the liberty; to venture.  -- To make the cards (Card Playing), to shuffle the pack.  -- To make choice of, to take by way of preference; to choose.  -- To make danger, to make experiment. [Obs.] Beau. & Fl.  -- To make default (Law), to fail to appear or answer.  -- To make the doors, to shut the door. [Obs.] Make the doors upon a woman's wit, and it will out at the casement. Shak. - To make free with. See under Free, a.  -- To make good. See under Good.  -- To make head, to make headway.  -- To make light of. See under Light, a.  -- To make little of. (a) To belittle. (b) To accomplish easily.  -- To make love to. See under Love, n.  -- To make meat, to cure meat in the open air. [Colloq. Western U. S.] -- To make merry, to feast; to be joyful or jovial.  -- To make much of, to treat with much consideration,, attention, or fondness; to value highly.  -- To make no bones. See under Bone, n.  -- To make no difference, to have no weight or influence; to be a matter of indifference.  -- To make no doubt, to have no doubt.  -- To make no matter, to have no weight or importance; to make no difference.  -- To make oath (Law), to swear, as to the truth of something, in a prescribed form of law.  -- To make of. (a) To understand or think concerning; as, not to know what to make of the news. (b) To pay attention to; to cherish; to esteem; to account. "Makes she no more of me than of a slave." Dryden.  -- To make one's law (Old Law), to adduce proof to clear one's self of a charge.  -- To make out. (a) To find out; to discover; to decipher; as, to make out the meaning of a letter. (b) To prove; to establish; as, the plaintiff was unable to make out his case. (c) To make complete or exact; as, he was not able to make out the money.  -- To make over, to transfer the title of; to convey; to alienate; as, he made over his estate in trust or in fee.  -- To make sail. (Naut.) (a) To increase the quantity of sail already extended. (b) To set sail.  -- To make shift, to manage by expedients; as, they made shift to do without it. [Colloq.].  -- To make sternway, to move with the stern foremost; to go or drift backward.  -- To make strange, to act in an unfriendly manner or as if surprised; to treat as strange; as, to make strange of a request or suggestion.  -- To make suit to, to endeavor to gain the favor of; to court.  -- To make sure. See under Sure.  -- To make up. (a) To collect into a sum or mass; as, to make up the amount of rent; to make up a bundle or package. (b) To reconcile; to compose; as, to make up a difference or quarrel. (c) To supply what is wanting in; to complete; as, a dollar is wanted to make up the stipulated sum. (d) To compose, as from ingredients or parts; to shape, prepare, or fabricate; as, to make up a mass into pills; to make up a story. He was all made up of love and charms! Addison. To compensate; to make good; as, to make up a loss. (f) To adjust, or to arrange for settlement; as, to make up accounts. (g) To dress and paint for a part, as an actor; as, he was well made up.  -- To make up a face, to distort the face as an expression of pain or derision.  -- To make up one's mind, to reach a mental determination; to resolve.  -- To make water. (a) (Naut.) To leak. (b) To urinate.  -- To make way, or To make one's way. (a) To make progress; to advance. (b) To open a passage; to clear the way.  -- To make words, to multiply words.

MAKEv.

Websters Unabridged Dictionary (1913) • 1913

To act in a certain manner; to have to do; to manage; to interfere; to be active; -- often in the phrase to meddle or make. [Obs.] A scurvy, jack-a-nape priest to meddle or make. Shak. To proceed; to tend; to move; to go; as, he made toward home; the tiger made at the sportsmen. To tend; to contribute; to have effect; -- with for or against; as, it makes for his advantage. M. Arnold. Follow after the things which make for peace. Rom. xiv. 19. Considerations infinite Do make against it. Shak. To increase; to augment; to accrue. To compose verses; to write poetry; to versify. [Archaic] Chaucer. Tennyson. To solace him some time, as I do when I make. P. Plowman. To make as if, or To make as though, to pretend that; to make show that; to make believe (see under Make, v. t.). Joshua and all Israel made as if they were beaten before them, and fled. Josh. viii. 15. My lord of London maketh as though he were greatly displeased with me. Latimer. -- To make at, to go toward hastily, or in a hostile manner; to attack.  -- To make away with. (a) To carry off. (b) To transfer or alienate; hence, to spend; to dissipate. (c) To kill; to destroy.  -- To make off, to go away suddenly.  -- To make out, to succeed; to be able at last; to make shift; as, he made out to reconcile the contending parties.  -- To make up, to become reconciled or friendly.  -- To make up for, to compensate for; to supply an equivalent for.  -- To make up to. (a) To approach; as, a suspicious boat made up to us. (b) To pay addresses to; to make love to.  -- To make up with, to become reconciled to. [Colloq.] -- To make with, to concur or agree with. Hooker.

makeverb

Wiktionary (English) • 2026

Wiktionary contributors • CC BY-SA 4.0 • via Kaikki
Extracted and formatted for display by Law Mind. Source link opens the current Wiktionary page and its contributor history; it is not a frozen copy of this extract.

To create. | To build, construct, produce, or originate. | To create. | To write or compose. | To create. | To bring about; to effect or produce by means of some action. | To create. | To create (the universe), especially (in Christianity) from nothing. | To create. | To prepare (food); to cook (food). | To behave, to act. | To tend; to contribute; to have effect; with for or against. | To constitute. | To add up to, have a sum of. | To interpret. | To bring into success. | To cause to be. | To cause to appear to be; to represent as. | To cause (to do something); to compel (to do something). | To force to do. | To indicate or suggest to be. | To cover neatly with bedclothes. | To recognise, identify, spot. | To arrive at a destination, usually at or by a certain time. | To proceed (in a direction). | To cover (a given distance) by travelling. | To move at (a speed). | To appoint; to name. | To induct into the Mafia or a similar organization (as a made man). | To defecate or urinate. | To earn, to gain (money, points, membership or status). | To pay, to cover (an expense); chiefly used after expressions of inability. | To compose verses; to write poetry; to versify. | To enact; to establish. | To develop into; to prove to be. | To form or formulate in the mind. | To perform a feat. | To gain sufficient audience to warrant its existence. | To act in a certain manner; to have to do; to manage; to interfere; to be active; often in the phrase to meddle or make. | To increase; to augment; to accrue. | To be engaged or concerned in. | To cause to be (in a specified place), used after a subjective what. | To take the virginity of. | To have sexual intercourse with. | Of water, to flow toward land; to rise. | To establish two or more men on (a point) so that it cannot be captured.

makenoun

Wiktionary (English) • 2026

An agricultural tool resembling a scythe, used to cut (harvest) certain plants such as peas, reeds, or tares.

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